Digital Beamforming Arrays

Legacy Digital Beamforming Array installed on a Range Support Aircraft

Next-Generation Digital-Beamforming (DBF) Arrays

Our next generation of DBF antenna technology has extended the RF coverage of the antenna from S-band to L/S/C telemetry bands simultaneously. We have utilized a tri-band array to demonstrate the first implementation of a new architecture that we call Universal Beamforming Technology (UBT), which can be applied to a wide variety of DBF applications, including communications, radar and telemetry.

We partnered with an antenna element provider to demonstrate the following proof-of-concept hardware for a US Government customer:

Highlights

We used current-generation low-cost commercially-available hardware to prototype a small-scale array to demonstrate such high performance with the potential for greatly-reduced SWaPC (Size Weight Power & Cost).

The System acquired and tracked 30 Mbps source moving at 120 deg/sec within +/-60 deg. field of view, and was even able to produce an error-free signal while tracking over +/- 90 deg in azimuth and/or elevation, in the presence of multipath.

Coming Up

We continue to develop UBT through our IRAD efforts, particularly in the following dimensions:

Increasing maximum data rate per channel

Increasing maximum aggregate data rate over all channels

Increasing maximum number of simultaneous beams

Reduce the SWAP footprint

Reduce the DBF cost by 3-5x compared to E-9 generation (2008)

Increase the hardware reliability and add fault tolerance

Fabricate flight-qualified production hardware for mission operation

Extend our UBT demonstration platlform from Rx-only to Tx/Rx

Demonstrate applicability of UBT to telemetry, communications and radar